Resurrection Appearances of Jesus as After-Death Communication: Response to Ken Vincent

Jesus’ resurrection appearances would in some sense comprise after-death messages. But this designation does not necessarily identify them as the sort of after-death communications (ADCs) that are well-known to readers of this Journal. More generally, to hold that the resurrection appearances were ADCs, at least as Ken Vincent has argued, seems to commit a logical fallacy, so that the form of the argument itself cannot sustain the weight of the conclusion. The most that the argument can indicate is that there are some similarities, not that they are necessarily the same class of events. More specifically, there are at least six crucial considerations that dispute Jesus’ resurrection appearances being ADCs in the usual sense of these events.